I'm not going to get into details about the packages mentioned, but as a
general answer...
>So why on earth was it ever closed-source?
As mentioned in my previous email, project management issues had a big
weight on this kind of decisions. Objectively, when you are a huge
company and you need to deliver quickly software matching commercial
quality standards it is probably faster, cheaper and easier to deliver
it as closed source.
Open source is more efficient in the beta stage and in the mid term,
agreed.
The UI is different, it was decided to have it closed in order to
protect it from changes and deviations out of the control of the
project.
Nowadays the history and context is a bit different, specially thanks to
the success of the maemo, IT OS and tablets projects. The wheels are
moving, as Kimmo says. Some things take some time, I insist. :)
And now, back to the wheels.
Quim